Exodus 21:17
by WalkingDictionary
Summary: An extended scene from Revelations. Major spoilers.


**Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers are a pain to write, but oh-so-necessary since they clearly state that I own nothing related to Criminal Minds or any other recognizable property that makes an appearance in this fiction. Although I do own a copy of a book that some information in the story came from, it was not glued to my side (i.e. not available), and the Internet was kind enough to step in and provide some needed basic research.**

**Oh, by the way, it's a given that anything prior to Revelations is spoiled in this fiction. Happy reading!**

"Is that a confession?"

Reid swallows thickly, nods numbly. "I confess."

He knows now that he was never meant to be saved. That he can never be saved. All his clues, all his deductions mean nothing since he is destined to die.

"You know your Bible. Exodus 21:17."

_Please, just let me recite the Bible._

"And he who curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death."

How can the Bible be so full of painful suggestions, like having a trinity of dogs tear a woman apart for cheating on her husband? Like killing a kid because he couldn't give his mom the proper care she needed?

Maybe he deserves to die. He did sentence his mother to a life of imprisonment. In a way he did curse her. What will be his death this time? A bullet? Stabbing? Strangulation?

Overdose?

Reid shakes himself to dislodge the heavy thoughts that really, really want to bury him in a landslide of useless facts that can't help anybody when a religious fanatic suffering from dissociative identity disorder decides everyone is guilty of something.

His mouth twitches as everything he knows about dissociative identity disorder wells up in his brain—an unending reel of statistics that neither comforts nor calms him. Like the injections Tobias insists on giving him.

He is addicted to statistics and now he is addicted to Dilaudid. He's read too many pamphlets on drug use to trick himself at this point—or maybe the trick is that he thinks he's addicted so he will become addicted. Surely he can't need more, he's only just come off a high. He's already starting to go into withdrawal. It must be whatever Tobias cuts it with since pure Dilaudid, in the amount given to him, would certainly kill Tobias, Raphael, Charles, the three dogs, and him.

His head hurts, throbbing especially hard where Charles hit him with his own gun. He just wants to stop. Stop thinking, stop hurting, stop breathing.

Everything feels surreal right now, like how he felt after Tobias revived him. A sick feeling settles in the pit of his stomach, burning his intestines with nausea—dreams aren't his forte. Reality seems to be slipping, falling sideways and taking his vision with it, as he watches Charles's face—Raphael's face, it's Raphael now, right?—for a sign of forgiveness. Why should the archangel give him absolution when his own mother isn't grateful for him saving her life?

Some small part of him fights back, telling him that without her commitment she'd be dead or she'd have hurt someone. That it really was for the best. Now to convince everyone else, himself included.

Another part argues that Raphael and Charles are right. Death is the only proper punishment for a sinner such as him. He feels something deep in his chest seize.

He's a sinner.

He deserves to die.

Suddenly, almost intrusively, Raphael kneels in front of him, key to the handcuffs held so that he can see it. Reid holds still while the metal bracelets click open. He can feel his fingers brush against Raphael's hands.

Warm skin under his cold fingers. Unwanted touches.

_Don't touch me!_

"Grab a shovel."

Reid fights back a sob. His mind races, kicked into action by the fact that in less than half an hour he will die. He will never get to think again. Maybe there's still time to escape, maybe there's time to change Charles and Raphael's mind…minds? And maybe he's king of the moon.

This is not happening. This cannot be happening. Reid feels his heart knock against his chest, attempting to escape while the rest of his body remains stuck in this shack. Denial. Stage one of the Kübler-Ross model. Proposed by author Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book _On Death and Dying_.

His heart suddenly stops jumping, stilling with the thought that he hates Tobias, JJ, Hotch, the whole damn team.

_Why the hell aren't they here? Why are they never here when I need them?_

Reid knows it's irrational, this anger. Stage two of the Kübler-Ross model. But it feels good to feel something almost as powerful as the Dilaudid surging through his body, warming his fingers and toes. He barely feels Raphael pull him upright by his arms, fingers fitting over the bruises Charles left earlier.

Fear doesn't factor in now. Perhaps it will later. Right now, Reid focuses on surviving a minute, an hour more. Focuses on dissipating his anger.

Maybe, if he begins to play into the delusion—more so than he already has—Tobias will come back and he'll help Reid escape. Maybe, if he does not do something else stupid, like splitting up with JJ, like locking his mother up, he'll be allowed to live long enough to say goodbye in person.

Reid feels laughter bubbling in his chest, choking him with hysteria. He's moving through the stages of grief simply because he knows what they are, what order they go in, and how unreliable they can be, all the recent articles he's read discussing this such topic within the past ten years slipping from the recesses of his brain.

He knows too much.

His mental capacity—memory, knowledge—is well over the limit for one mortal, so why shouldn't God strike him down?

And just like that, Reid moves from a bargaining calm—third stage—to a deep aching in his chest familiar to all the times he cried himself to sleep in high school. All the internal hurt from being so different, so outcast. He thinks he must be bleeding from nearly half a million invisible cuts.

Depression. Severe depression. Suicidal depression.

He holds his breath, feeling his heartbeat pick up again until it's rattling against his ribcage and his lungs are begging for air. He can't deny the fear now.

He rocks back and forth, arms crossed over his abdomen, half expecting Charles to strike him for being so weak. Sobs strangle him, but he can't feel any hot tears welling in his eyes, nothing seeping from his tear ducts.

Finally, a deep breath rushes cool, pungent air into his lungs, releasing the feeling of steel bands squeezing his chest. The pain smoothes out, leaving him barely standing on his good foot.

Something akin to acceptance runs through his veins, slowing his racing heart, calming his tumultuous thoughts. He will live on in the memories of the people he has interacted with, even if all they remember about him is that he was socially awkward and highly intelligent.

And now he needs to move—itches to do so—yet he can't. Remains standing with his hands held carefully in front of his body as if to stave off an attack. His breath is gone again. The pain of dying scares him more than the actual fact. His mind kicks in again, attempting to calm him with cold, hard facts, and now he knows why everyone always tells him to stop talking.

Perhaps, in death, he'll finally be free from the horrors of his job, of his life. Free to see if an afterlife really does exist. See if he deserves to taste Heaven.

"Grab a shovel," Charles reminds him gently, almost sounding kind. And Reid knows, Charles may like the redemption part of his "mission," but he is as disgusted with the killing as Tobias is. He just hides it underneath his cracked psyche.

Fists and angry words make a great shield, Reid smiles inside. Wonders if he'd fought back in high school would he be like Charles? Like Tobias? Like Raphael?

Like his mother?

Would he be fractured beyond belief, clinging to an imaginary world far more frightening than any a serial killer could create?

Would he be locked in a room, in a box, waiting for the day that someone like Richard Angelo or Doctor Kevorkian finally takes pity on him and kills him?

His thoughts play Russian roulette with him, rapid firing empty chambers against a blackness that is more complete than the inherent absence of light. Every pull of the trigger brings the chances of death from the game to a higher and higher percentage.

At first, a person, a single player—Reid—has a sixteen and two-thirds percent chance of being shot. After the first pull of the trigger, this percentage increases to twenty percent. After three shots, it increases to twenty-five percent. The forth shot—the chamber he decided not to tempt and was rewarded with a loud, echoing blast—has a thirty-three and a third percent chance of being the fatal shot. The chance of being shot is fifty percent after five shots, and the last shot holds a hundred percent chance of killing the player.

Of course, to make it that far takes incredible luck. Reid bites back another sob as his mind informs him of all the different patterns the bullet could have come out and killed him sooner or later. First shot, second shot. Factorial.

720 different combinations. Of course, with the bullet in different places, he could have died sooner rather than later.

Reid's not sure he really wanted to save himself. It would have been so easy to say "No" one last time. To let the bullet rip through his skull, splatter his brain, kill him.

He can still hear the clicking of the revolver's chambers from Raphael's test, from God's test. He wishes "God's Will" had taken him. He wishes his team were here to rescue him.

He wishes he'd never been born.

_Grab a shovel._

He can't find the requested shovel and is surprised when Charles hands it to him without any words, without any hard glares.

"You're not mad at me?" He doesn't realize the words have left his lips until Charles turns to him, his mouth twisting into a grotesque snarl.

He was wrong. Charles is the _only_ one who enjoys the killing.

"I'm not the one who has to be mad," somehow the body from which the voice has been issued does not resemble Tobias in the slightest. "God has judged."

_And you have been found lacking._

For a brief moment, Reid thinks he sees Tobias fighting for control over his body, and Reid doesn't know if he wants him to succeed.

On the one hand, it would be nice to have an ally. But on the other, larger, and stronger hand, Tobias might drug him again, and if Reid wants to have a fighting chance at living—_Make up your mind! Do you want to live or die?_—he needs his mind to remain as clear as it possibly can.

When they start moving to go outside, Reid realizes his foot, the one Charles hit with the piece of wood, won't take his weight. He has to do a kind of awkward jump-shuffle just to keep pace with the striding man.

He sniffles, fighting the same tears he's been crying since he saw that couple murdered in front of him, because of him—_Damn you, Gideon. It is my fault_—and Charles turns back, but it's not Charles.

It's Tobias. He holds out his hand to Reid, offering a little comfort. Reid shows him the shovel and Tobias nods.

"No one is strong enough to fight him," he says simply, turning away again. When Tobias looks back at Reid, it's Charles again.

"No one," Reid whispers, feeling a slight satisfaction that Tobias has finally explained why Reid was destined to die tonight. His breath, visible in the cold air, puffs into the darkness. Messages to the stars. Like smoke signals, used by Native Americans and other indigenous people to signal danger or celebration or…

If he starts talking to someone, anyone, will someone, anyone answer?

Will that make him crazy?

The ground is rough, scraping against his bruised foot, snagging at his sock. More physical pain. Reid almost welcomes it since it helps numb him, like the cold is doing. His rolled up sleeve exposes his arm and the needle marks burn worse than when Tobias inflicted them. How can this be, this juxtaposition of numb and feeling? Fiery heat in the dead of winter?

Charles catches him scratching at them, laughs derisively, spits "Pitiful" at him.

"Here." The change is almost shocking, like the sound of an empty chamber being fired at his forehead. When did Raphael take charge? How is he going to get away if he can't even predict when the personality changes?

Raphael is still playing the game with him. God's Will is now the personality that will kill him.

"Dig here. This is a good spot."

They are several yards from the shack. Far enough that any imagined heat from the shelter is gone, but not so far that if he screams and someone is at the house they can't not hear him.

He doesn't want to scream.

He has finally decided that he wants to die. Moreover, he wants Tobias to kill him. Tobias will be God's Will. He will set Tobias free.

Reid drops to his knees, glad to be off his foot, shovel clanging against the ground, banging painfully into his leg. Why does pain matter? Why shouldn't it?

He begins scraping at the dirt, thinking, _I am not strong enough. I'll never be strong enough. I'm sorry._

"I oughta bury you alive in there, give you time to think about what you done." Charles seems content to judge him now.

_You have been found lacking._

"I know what I've done," Reid manages to choke out, and really he does. He knows that he helped his mother even if this maniac and his mom can't see it right now.

"Don't talk back to me." The words are menacing, promising more "confession" pain, but Charles doesn't move. "Dig." Raphael and Charles are confusing him now. The angel shows his face when Charles becomes too angry to leave Reid alone. Is he saving him?

"What are you stopping for?"

His progress is greatly hampered by the Dilaudid withdrawal and the fact that his stomach refused to eat more than the thin soup Tobias made. He just doesn't have the physical strength.

At least he no longer has to breathe through the stench of the burning fish organs and rotting flesh. He still smells it on himself, is certain in ten thousand years when his body is discovered, it will still be on him. He's sure his mom can smell it on him right now.

"Dig faster!"

Is that Raphael losing his composure or Charles losing his temper? Does it matter?

_God's Will. Tobias. Come out and play._

"I'm not strong enough," Reid doesn't care if he antagonizes the man.

He will die in his own time. Not the time designated to him by a seriously whacked out psycho. Finally, he realizes with certainty that he wants to live. Wants to visit his mom so he can apologize again for sending her away.

"You're all weak." It's definitely Charles glaring down at him, lowering the knife he is using to force Reid to dig his own grave. The man, furious at being surrounded by drug addicts and sinners, rips off his jacket—seemingly forgetting that Raphael had slipped the gun into its pocket—lets it drop not three feet from where Reid is watching.

As Charles prepares to join him in the shallow hole, Reid decides that it's now or never to prove Gideon right and he stares into the distance, hoping that Charles will be distracted by this. He doesn't recognize the significance of the flashlights cutting through the dark of the night. He barely sees them.

It works—Charles's eyes are off the gun—and Reid doesn't stop to contemplate why it works, he moves for the gun, tearing it from its makeshift holster and snapping the hammer back.

And so begins his last struggle for his soul. One that will ultimately end in either one or three deaths. His turn to play with God's Will.

_Front sight, trigger press, follow through._

"Only one bullet in that gun, boy," Charles has recovered and together they ignore the approaching lights and people. Someone should tell Charles how ridiculous he looks waving a knife at an armed person. Reid holds still.

_Front sight, trigger press, follow through._

Pulling the trigger is instinct when Charles runs at him. The gunshot sounds loud even to him, his hearing muffled from another instinct, a vain attempt to protect his weakened body from another assault.

Voices shout as he scrambles to remove the weapon from Charles's hand, an irrational fear that the man will chop his head off if he doesn't.

When he looks in the face of his second fatal gunshot victim, Reid is horrified to notice that the eyes aren't those of Charles. Or Raphael, not that there's a difference between them anymore.

It's Tobias and he's crying.

_God's Will._

Someone is screaming his name, but Reid can only focus on Tobias, a surprisingly small hole where his heart should be. Blood. Shouldn't there be more blood than this?

"You killed him." Tobias isn't a thirty year old man still "living" with his father. He's an eight year old boy and Reid shot him.

"Tobias?" _What a stupid question, mouth,_ his brain taunts. But even so, his mouth and heart can't comprehend what his brain and hand have done.

"Do you think I'll get to see my mom?" What answer does Reid have for that? He doesn't even know if Mrs. Henkel is still alive. He doesn't know if she'd still love her baby if she knew what Raphael and Charles made him do.

"I'm sorry." _I'm sorry I shot you. I'm sorry I killed you. I'm sorry you lived and died the way you did._

And die Tobias does. His eyes glazing over, his breath stopping. Reid feels his breath stop with the boy's, sobs threatening to burst from his aching chest. He does not want to go through the stages of grief again.

Suddenly, someone touches his shoulder hesitantly and gently, as if careful of the bruises left from Charles. "Reid?" He is startled into breathing again and looks up.

Hotch. "You all right?"

Hotch is here. That means the others are here, too. Reid forces himself to stand despite the gnawing pain of his foot and the Dilaudid withdrawal and the cold that has somehow been forgotten until now. He looks at all of his teammates, trying to read their expressions.

Are they mad at him? Scared for him? Proud of him?

Before he knows it, he is leaning into Hotch, wrapping his arms around him, breathing in the fading cologne and the sweat smell. "I knew you'd understand." And now Reid realizes that somewhere in the back of his mind, he did know that Hotch wouldn't take his choosing him to die as wrong or vindictive or as a result of torture. He took it for what it was: a clue. Hotch lets him hug him, hugs back too.

And then there is JJ. Reid has avoided thinking about her involvement in his kidnapping, about how it could have been her. It wasn't her fault he was captured. He was the one stupid enough to decide that they should split up. She probably faced some danger that he should have been with her to prevent.

"I am so sorry." Never in a million years can she be blamed. Never in all of eternity will he blame her.

"It's all right. It's not your fault." _It's my fault_, he wants to say, wants to shout. Wants the whole team to know so that the really sad look in her eyes will go away. If she starts crying, he will too.

He can't see her eyes while they're hugging. It's a hard hug, full of regret, relief, and pain—he can't balance on his foot anymore. When she pulls away, she nods at Morgan and leaves them. Morgan follows a moment later, his _Kid-I'm-so-sorry-this-happened-but-I'm-happy-you're-alive _look keeping his face dark.

Gideon appears next to him. Why can't he focus on the people he's not touching? He can see them in his peripheral vision, but until they directly demand his attention, he can't _see_ them. His arm is lifted and gently placed over the older man's shoulders. He's going to help Reid walk even though he doesn't know where Reid's hurting and it'll be awkward and maybe even more painful than if he'd just let Reid blank the pain from his mind and move on his own.

Suddenly, the monster Tobias created, Reid's addiction to Dilaudid and the withdrawal he's suffering from, remind Reid of the vials in Tobias's pocket. Will they still be there or did they fall out?

"W-wait," his voice is too quiet; Gideon doesn't stop pulling at him. "Can I-Can I have a second alone?" The tremors in his voice are from more than the cold air and the pain—those are both dull compared to the burning heat radiating from the crook of his elbow. _Fire in winter._

He wishes Gideon wouldn't let him, but he has no reason to stop him. No one does. And no one notices when he drops to his knees next to the empty shell of a young boy, reaching into the pocket.

The vials are still warm. Tobias is still warm. Even in the winter night, temperature loss is still less than a few degrees an hour, and Tobias has been dead for less than ten minutes.

Will his team be mad when they discover the Dilaudid? Will they be scared of what he has become, what he feels himself becoming? Will they ever be proud of him again?

What will his mother think of him?

Reid stands up, shifting until he finds the right way to walk without damaging his foot further, and wraps his arms around his stomach, trying to hold in the tears of disappointment in himself and the fear that he has now been broken.

_You are stronger than him. He cannot break you._

If only it was that simple.

"With innocence, people have self-worth. Without it, there is nothing."

~Anonymous~

~ The End ~

**Author's Note: I am eternally grateful for those who struggle through my hodgepodge ideas, and even more grateful to those who take the time to favorite, alert, and especially review. I know I am bad at replying, so just know that you are greatly appreciated, and I thank you from the bottom of my soul (since it goes much deeper than my heart and is more sentimental than my mind).**

**Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day!**


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